Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Mars and Beyond (1957)

Walt Disney opens the Disneyland TV program Mars and Beyond by asking, "Will we find planets with only a low form of vegetable life or will there be mechanical robots controlled by super intelligent beings?""Even though scientists think Martian conditions are severe, they believe that if man journeyed to Mars he could survive here with moderate protection... life [on Mars] could be almost normal inside pressurized houses and pressurized cities.""Today, as we face the problems of over-population and depletion of natural resources the possibility of Mars becoming a new frontier is of increasing importance in our plans for the future."You can view a clip of the program here and you can find this program in its entirety on the DVD set Walt Disney Treasures - Tomorrowland: Disney in Space and Beyond. The program originally aired on December 4, 1957 and was eventually released theatrically.

Agreed. One of the best DVD sets of all time. Worth every penny and worth watching again and again! Ward Kimball was an animation genius, too. Much of the style of this and the other Tomorrowland programs were quite modern, and light years (yes, I'm using the phrase incorrectly) beyond anything else Disney was doing at the time.